


in the 5am light

by Ash_Cassidy97



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond - All Media Types, London Spy, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Bond is the most mentally sound in this, Boxing, Danny Holt is Q, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Government Conspiracy, Hurt Q, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, No-seriously Bond is the most mentally stable, Protective James Bond, Q deserves nice things, Q is a Holmes, Recovery, all of Q's hurts happen off scene, kinda happy that's a tag, like that's a low-key part but little bit important, this is lighter than it sounds-probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 09:49:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14566410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ash_Cassidy97/pseuds/Ash_Cassidy97
Summary: “Q?” Bond opened the door.“There was a thing.” It was 3am, and Q doesn’t know why, but he wasn’t expecting James to be so undressed in a pair of boxers and a gun.“With what? The Russians?” Bond let the bloody man in. He had cuts across his head.“Bulgarians. There was a thing.” Bond got Q’s arm around him and got him inside. “Sorry, terribly unprofessional but I didn’t know anybody else.”





	in the 5am light

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't seen London Spy, I'd go see that before reading this. A lot of this work deals with rape and betrayal, but all of that happens off the scene. Just. Be warned, and you can always ask me before reading.

 

“Q?” Bond opened the door.

 

“There was a thing.” It was 3am, and Q doesn’t know why, but he wasn’t expecting James to be so undressed in a pair of boxers and a gun.

 

“With what? The Russians?” Bond let the bloody man in. He had cuts across his head.

 

“Bulgarians. There was a thing.” Bond got Q’s arm around him and got him inside. “Sorry, terribly unprofessional but I didn’t know anybody else.”

 

“It’s fine. Were you followed?”

 

“No.”

 

Bond’s flat was meticulously clean, all polished and scrubbed. Q tracked blood through the living room and into the bathroom. Q wasn’t breathing right. He was shaking.

 

Bond sat him down on the toilet. Q kept tracking him in flashes. The med kit was less of a kit and more of the whole bathroom. Bond cut away Q’s shirt with safety scissors, revealing stars of bruises. Bond stripped off his quartermaster's trousers as well. There were scratches up and down his legs, like claw marks from dogs.

 

And Bond didn’t buy the boffin’s story.

 

He had the look of somebody who’d been out in the cold. The  _ cold _ like that was all it was.

 

Q kept flinching away from Bond, and all jokes aside about techies being touch-aversion, Bond never found that to happen lightly. Bond ignored him. He turned the shower on, and laid the gun on a shelf. He needed to get a clear picture of what he was dealing with. He let the water get just hot enough.

 

Q shook his head, “I can take it from here, Bond.”

 

“Come, now, Q, what’s a little embarrassment between colleagues?”

 

“I haven’t called it in, yet,” Q argued.

 

“Called in what?”

 

“I-the case, the French-I mean Bulgarians,” he quickly corrected himself.

 

“Easy, Q, I’m not asking you to lie to me, steady,” Bond said softly. He picked up his Quartermaster, and helped him into the stall. “That’s it, that’s it.” Q’s hands flew, hitting Bond in the face. “Steady,” Bond said again, keeping his voice relaxed, not wanting to alarm Q further.

 

“Bond, I’m HIV positive, I could-”

 

“I take PrEP, Q, it’s okay. It’s okay, and Medical lowers your risk and mine, just calm down now, it’s alright. Whatever it is, it’s over for the moment.” Q kept shaking, and Bond hissed as dirt fell away. Some beat up his friend to the point where Q was panicking about giving Bond HIV, like they’d both forgotten basic medicine. Jesus.

 

Q kept trying to stand on his feet only to fall back into Bond’s chest. “You’re sure?” Bond nodded.

 

“I promise. Nothing’s getting past me.” And Q broke, sobbing in gasping breaks. “Easy, love, easy.” James, it had to be James now, washed him down with a cloth, slipping Q’s underwear off as he went. “Here we go, here we go.” James got him out of the stall and back onto the toilet seat. “Let’s get you bandaged up, heh? Medical’s going to have a nightmare with you, eh?”

 

“You’re not going to tell them,” Q got out in a strict voice.

 

“Hmmm.” James broke out the med kit. “This is going to sting.” Q hung his head on James’ shoulder, not wanting to watch more of his dignity getting stripped away. He lost track of time. James cleaned the wounds. He got Q’s arm over his shoulder. “Alright, let’s get you some sleep.”

 

“And it will be all better in the morning?”

 

“Yeah.” James wrapped Q in blankets. “Give me a minute, alright? I want to lock things down. There’s a loaded gun in the bedside table. Knife in a sheath under the pillow. Five minutes, alright?” Bond pointed to the clock on the wall.

 

He quickly made tea and locked the flat down, knowing better than feeding Q anything hardier than honey. He turned the heat up. Q was hyperventilating, clutching the gun in both hands. James placed the tea gently on the bedside table, and got himself behind Q, letting the injured lay across his lap. There was blood on the sheets. Q had tried to get out of the bed.

 

“I can’t, Bond, I can’t.”

 

“I know, I know.”

 

“He’s-” Q cut himself off. “I can’t.”

 

“Okay. I want you to drink some tea for me so we can start getting you rehydrated.”

 

Q just shook his head.

 

“Okay, okay. I can put something in the tea to help you sleep.”

 

“And I won’t dream.” It wasn’t a question.

 

“Promise it.”

 

“Do that.” James did, dissolving some power from a bottle that was in the drawer into the cup, careful not to let Q see. “You-” He lost the will to finish the thought, but found it again. “You’re going to have to help me drink it.”

 

“Alright, I’m going to pinch your nose, okay.” Luckily, James got the tea down Q’s throat. “That’s it, that’s it. Shhh.”

 

“They kept telling me, that you know?” Q asked drowsily. “Kept hurting me and saying it’d be okay.” He passed out before James could answer.

 

James swore softly. He knew Q’s work, he did. The Quartermaster was the best at getting sent into tricky situations because he looked innocent. Something went wrong. James swore again. He put the gun back in the drawer, put the knife back where it should go. He called in.

 

“Moneypenny,” He said when she answered.

 

“007, you like to text. What’s wrong?”

 

“I have Q. You can call off the search.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Yes. I’ll bring him in when he’s able.”   
  


“That bad?” And her voice got even sharper.

 

“Go attack M.”

 

“Will do,” she growled out. And Q was good at getting them all on his side. Far better than M thought.

 

Bond woke to a pounding on the door. Q bolted, slamming his weight against the back wall. Some time during the night, he’d gotten a gun. Bond froze, not forgetting for one instant who actually made all the guns go bang.

 

“Hey,” Bond said, his voice dry and cracking slightly. Q tracked him. Barely. James knew better than to take one step towards him. “There are sweats in the bottom drawer. I’m going to go take care of that.” He gave Q his back, not even giving it a second thought.

 

James grabbed a spare gun from the living room. He looked through the peephole. Moneypenny. Jesus. James let his head fall forward and lightly knock against the door with a dull thud.

 

“Bond, I will blow your door down,” she hissed from the other side. And James let her in because he knew that panic in her voice. She carried a bag of groceries in one hand and a duffle in the other. He gave her a look. “Oh, like you have anything besides a bag of crisps in your cupboards.”

 

“Shoes,” he told her. She kicked off her heels. She was still dressed like she’d just gotten off work, never mind that it was 5am. James started making food, keeping the gun close at hand. Moneypenny took a seat, making damn sure that her head was lower than his, presenting less of a threat. James could hear the shower start up and he’d have to deal with that eventually.

 

“How bad?” she asked, not daring to try to inch past the guard dog to see Q for herself.

 

“Worse than Baghdad.”

 

They had James for two months in Baghdad. Q got him out, with a vengeance worthy of a god.

 

“Can I slip in and -”

 

“He can hear you. If he wants to see you, he can come out.” It wasn’t a snap at Q. Just. People don’t come to James Bond for socialization. They come for guns, explosions, and sex. And if you’re Q, they come for him to be a blockade in front of the rest of the people. And James owed him more than simply watching his back.

 

“And I’m to take your word that he’s-he’ll be alright?”

 

“Yes. Thank you for the groceries.” Moneypenny very firmly snapped the front door shut behind her, taking the dismissal for what it was.

 

“That Moneypenny?” Q asked, sagging against the wall.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“So M knows.”

 

James nodded, adding the finishing spices to the potatoes. “I called it in last night.”

 

“Course you did.”

 

“Come on, you shouldn’t be out of bed yet.” James carefully tucked him up again, juggling the boffin and a plate of food. He slid behind Q.

 

“You remembered about the potatoes.”

 

“That’s all I remember after Baghdad, your voice.”

 

“You going to babble at me?” He asked with a snippy note.

 

“If that’s what you need, yes.”

 

“Hmm.” Q choked down some more food, bracing himself against James. “Are you still going to tell medical on me?”

 

“Easy, you know I have to. It’s going to be alright.”

 

“When?”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“When are you going to hand me off?”

 

James caught Q’s eyes. “I’m not handing you off, Q. And nothing bad is going to happen, and if, if it does, it will be okay.”

 

And James carefully put the plate aside. He’d made sure to give Q only a small proportion of potatoes and cheese. Q took his medicine that Eve had packed for him, giving it a terrified look. And James noted it in a running log of triggers. Medical was going to be a bitch. Q hated doctors long before whatever the new trauma had brought.

 

James carefully untucked himself from the bed. “Speaking of which, I want to check your injuries.”

 

“No.” Q fought him off. James stopped, and thought about it for a second.

 

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

 

“I’m fine,” Q snapped, gripping the sheets tightly.

 

“What’s bothering you?” James asked, slowly.

 

“I don’t-I don’t want anybody else to see me like this.”

 

“Q,” James said slowly, patiently, “You know everything about me. You know how many times I’ve licked a girl out this month. You know what flavor of lube I prefer. You know that I’m left hand dominant, that I prefer a knife to a gun. And you still  _ help  _ me.”

 

“So?”

 

“Whatever happened to you doesn’t change my opinion of you, okay?” Q let up.

 

Bond tugged the blanket down. Q looked worse in the morning light. James carefully redid all the bandages. He tucked the blanket down further. Q flinched and shut his eyes. James was quick about it at least.

 

“Well?” Q asked, grumpily, pulling the blankets back up.

 

“Medical’s still going to have to check you out.”

 

“I’m fine.”

 

“Q, I just saw your naked body. You really think that’s going to fly?”

 

“It was worth a shot.”

 

“Get some sleep,” James said at last. “M wants us in later today.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because they need to make sure you’re not dead.”

 

James kept watch, curled up against Q, who was still missing his glasses. And he remembered why Q was put in charge of the 00s. Q thought in different ways than they did, he would protect them till his dying breath, and Lord help anybody who came for Q’s people. And somebody broke him over it. And James had watched Q turn evil, be ready to burn the whole world down.

 

Q doesn’t break for nothing.

 

Hell, James probably lost to Q on shear number of infiltration missions, which was saying something.

 

Q woke around 10am. 7 hours of sleep. James was still awake, paging through some trashy spy novel, because he had a sick sense of humor. He laid back with a groan. James had splinted his arm across his chest, and braced his legs with something. Fuck.

 

“It’s going to be okay.”

 

“It’s not,” Q murmured, but he got out of the bed. “It’s weird.”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“This.” Q waved a hand at all of this. “We don’t share a bed. Ever.”

 

“Q?” The man raised an eyebrow in response to James. “Try not to over analyze this. Somebody hurt you, and I’m safe. That’s all this is.”

 

“Yeah? Never know you to be this sentimental.”

 

“You should see what I’m going to do to the bastards who did this.”

 

“ **Bond, you can’t.** ” Q started to shake again. “ **Promise me. Promise you won’t go looking.** ”

 

“I can’t, Q.”

 

And somehow, some way, Q found himself in a car on the way to MI6. He couldn’t stop his hands from shaking. James didn’t say anything, but he actually stopped at red lights, which was like some kind of personal character growth.   
  


“If I tell you, will you not make me tell Medical?” James nodded. “And you won’t tell them?” James raised an eyebrow. “Right, you have an issue asking them for a band aid. Was this your plan all along?” James nodded again. “Right.”

 

“I don’t want you to be put in a poor position.”

 

“You’re putting me in a poor position.” Q rubbed his hair back, tried to come up with a different solution, and failed to come up with a different fix. “Fine. I had sex with a lot of men a while ago. I fell in love with a man, nevermind what his name is,” he cut in with hastily, trying to head James off at the pass, not that it ever worked. “And it turned out he was a spy. I don’t know everything. But it caught up to me, and I was hurt again. That’s it.”

 

“You loved him?”

 

“There not need be so much surprise in your voice,” Q grumbled. “I loved him. And I found him locked in a trunk because he loved me too much for his bosses to let him live.”

 

“This happened a while ago.” It wasn’t a question.

 

“Five years. You’d think I’d be over it. Apparently you’re not the only one with damage.”

 

“Really? Huh. I thought I had the award in the bag.” James firmly steered Q through MI6, glaring at anybody who looked a little too long at them. James stopped them in front of medical.

 

“I’m fine,” Q tried again. James shoved him through the doors.

 

And despite all his issues with medical, James had to admit that they knew what they were doing. They were dressed in plain clothes, barely even looking at Q, although, that might have something to do with James Bond willingly being in their midst. They  _ all _ had the physical scars from the last time that had happened.

 

“And you can prove it with a bunch of X-rays and scans,” James assured him.

 

“And then I get interrogated by M?” Q asked, almost hopefully.

 

“And then you get interrogated by M.”

 

“Right.”

 

And thank somebody that James had already beaten Medical into submission, because a grumpy quartermaster didn’t scare them.

 

“It’s alright, sir, we just need to take a few X-rays, and . . .” And they managed to bustle Q off without the man protesting much. And James followed, keeping guard. 

 

And Q was terrified, not an emotion he was used to. He wasn’t a 00 agent. He did infiltration, okay? He’s been beaten up, taken on the seedy underbelly, but that was years ago, when he was stupidly loyal. And the only thing, the only thing that kept him from bolting was the steady knowledge that James would haul him back and fight anybody who hurt him anymore.

 

And after a long time, the doctors finished their exams. All except for one.

 

“Easy,” the nurse tried. James was leaning against the back wall, not moving a fucking muscle.

 

Q was the one on the other side of the room armed with a gun.

 

“No blood tests.”

 

James kept watching, tracking him closely.

 

“I can’t,” Q snarled, and his hands were far too steady for even the nurse to not recognize the threat.

 

“Okay,” James agreed. 

 

“I mean it,” Q affirmed.

 

“Yeah, I know.” James still hadn’t moved. “But you know, it’s gonna cause a fuss. And we’ll be stuck here for another hour.”

 

“Fine by me.”

 

James sighed. “Okay. I’m still tired from jet lag. Don’t blame me if I fall asleep on you.”

 

“What do you want me to do?” Q wasn’t taking his eyes off the nurse. James was more concerned that M would find this a hostage situation. Eh, not like it doesn’t happen every other day between Q and some agent stupid enough to block the coffee maker. They were still trying to wash the blood stains out of the walls.

 

“You trust me, right?” Q nodded. “Okay, I can take the sample if you want.”

 

“What do you mean?” Now, James took his weight off the wall. The nurse stayed, watching.

 

James thoroughly cleaned a knife with alcohol, after letting Q test the liquid. He made a small cut on Q’s arm, near a vein, and collected the blood in a clean test tube. Q didn’t watch. He made sure to close his eyes, and-

 

James tied off the cut, and handed the phial to the nurse. He guided Q to the gym showers, and waited patiently outside.

 

“You’re teaching me to fight,” Q told him.

 

“We can start Monday, I won’t risk your recovery.”

 

“Fine.” James went back to trailing Q on the walk to M’s office.

 

“Do you want me in there with you?”

 

“No. Thank you.” Q took a deep breath and then went in.

 

“How’re you holding up?” Eve asked, handing him a cup of tea. She’d given Q a professional nod, knowing that he didn’t want people near him at the moment.

 

“I’m alright.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Yeah. James leaned heavily against the wall, staring at the office door.

 

And he was. He was okay. He knew Q. You have to have balls of steal to do this job, to willingly put yourself in fucked up situations, and come out of it relatively sane. Five years, this wouldn’t even be on the list of fucked up shit. But that’s five years away.

 

Q came out of M’s office.

 

“Get him home,” M told James, “And make damn sure that he doesn’t come into work for at least a week.” James nodded.

 

He guided Q out of MI6 and drove carefully home. Q hunched up in the passenger seat, wrapping his arms around his legs, resting his feet on the dash. James didn’t say anything about footprints, which let Q know more than he needed about how awful he looked.

 

“I’m going to kip on the couch,” James told him. Q shook his head. He clutched James’ shirt and practically dragged him into bed. Well, James had to push the wheelchair that Medical had constrained him to (James’ had Thoughts about how long that was going to last). And James wasn’t strong enough to resist Q when he was like this.

 

So James drove him to the gun range the next day. James left him to his own. James wasn’t stupid enough to ever forget how dangerous Q was. Q shot the whole clip in a tight circle, his hands barely twitching. He breathed a sigh of relief. He could still shoot. He was not useless.

 

“Thank you,” he said softly to James.

 

“Of course.”

 

“It was a simple infil. I was to be some young twink who wanted a good time, and I was to hack their security because I couldn’t do it outside their security. I’ve done it a hundred times.”

 

“Hmm.”

 

“And they knew. About-” Q froze, but lets it go. “About Alex. I loved him and they used it.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“And they’re dead, the French,” he said with an ironic twist on the last word. “How-how do you sleep after that?”

 

“I don’t. I don’t sleep. I bury myself in work, and you shouldn’t do that.”

 

“And here I thought you buried yourself in booze and women.” James froze. “Sorry,” Q said softly. “Sorry, that was. Sorry.”

 

“It’s okay.” James sighed. “I rarely have sex for fun.”

 

“Okay.” And at least Q doesn’t need to ask why, perk of him monitoring missions enough.

 

It was quiet for the next few days. Q wasn’t allowed back to work until at least another week. M didn’t want the minions panicking and inventing time travel (they’d done it before). So, Q was stuck at Bond’s until MI6 cleared him a new apartment.

 

“I’m so bored!” Q whined at James.

 

“I don’t care,” the 00 agent snapped back, ready to murder somebody, anybody, please give him a mission, please. “Just, Jesus, stop moving around, you’re going to break something, and watch a TV show or something!” Q threw himself down on the couch.

 

“Bored.”

 

James sighs heavily, trying to keep his calm. “Get up. Jump up and down a few times.” Q, for once, does as asked. James nods. “Come on, we’re hitting the gym, before I kill you.”

 

“Medical-” James raises his eyebrows. “Nevermind.” Q grabs a bag with some clothes. “What are we doing?” James doesn’t say a word all the way to the gym. James patiently waits for Q to change in the gym, and glares at the other patrons until they move along. Q’s still battered looking, bruised enough to deserve a stay in a hospital, not a gym.

 

The gym itself is old, not one of those bright and shiny twenty-four hour fitness centers. The people there were even more so. James fit right in.

 

“Alright, you’re still recovering, but we can start with some boxing. Give me your hands.” He wrapped up Q’s hands with wraps. He leads Q over to a empty bit of mat.

 

“Don’t we use gloves and kick shields?”

 

“Why? So you can learn to hit an inanimate object? No. You land a hit on me, and we can renegotiate the caffeine rule during recovery.”

 

“To what?” Q looks up in interest.

 

“Two cups a day.” Q grins bright and angry and throws a hook at James’ face. James easily ducks and lightly, lightly, taps Q’s chest with a hand. “Make sure to block me too.” Q swung again, snatching back to block in time to catch James’ jab. “That it.”

 

“This . . .isn’t  . . .so . . .bad,” Q rasps out. 

 

James smirks. “Just wait until they start hitting back.” James keeps him at it for another twenty minutes before calling him in. “We’ll be back again tomorrow, if you can lift your arms above your head.”

 

“Great,” Q enthused. James drives them back, and watches Q stumble into the shower. He’s gonna have to do something about that kid. He sighs heavily, and accept it as his due. He showers after Q first.

 

“Are you going to interrogate me?” the boffin asks, eyeing one of the kitchen knives. Bond starts pasta, ignoring him for a minute. “Well?”

 

“You can tell me what you want.”

 

“And what? You’re not going digging?”

 

“You know me better than that.” Of course James was going digging, but Q wouldn’t let him discover anything he didn’t want know. Q was a damn good spy, current situation notwithstanding.

 

“I don’t-”

 

“Q, it’s me. Anything you say, I’ve seen, possible done, definitely had done to me.”

 

“I know that.” He sounds bitter, awful in it. “I know that.” He scratches at his head. “I know.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“But what, what if you don’t like me after?”

 

That makes James turn around, ignoring the pasta for a minute. “Q, I couldn’t ever not like you.” He pauses thoughtfully. “Unless you murdered dogs. Nope, not even then.”

 

Q nods, not quit believing it, and James don’t know how to make him belief it. “I-they wanted to know if I knew what Alex had uncovered.”

 

“Your lover.”

 

“He was-yeah, I guess he was that, but he-he was pulling me into the light, out of clubs. And so they murdered him, his bosses. They framed me for it. It wasn’t hard. I used to do drugs, have a ton of sex with a lot of guys. Well, I got too close.”

 

“What happened?” James asked when Q doesn’t talk for a minute. He doesn’t bother looking at Q, keeping his attention in chopping the vegetables.

 

“They infected me with HIV, through a blood drawl. And they told me that Alex, Alistair, that was his given name supposedly was well versed in sex, in lies, and secretes, and I joined MI6 to find the truth.”

 

“Did you ever find it?”

 

“No. But I kept the world a little bit safer from those who’d kill their own spies.”

 

“Good. We need it.”

 

“I know.”

 

“And this? This was the  _ Russians _ ?” he asks with a sarcastic snarl.

 

“No. It was. Well, it was from some form of British government. They’re dead. Killed them. But not before they raped me.”

 

“Q-”

 

“It’s fine. ‘S like it hasn’t happened before.” James’ shoulders tighten, but he doesn’t turn around. He can’t trust his face for once. “It’s why M and Medical are throwing a fit.”

 

“Right they should.”

 

Q shrugs. “Not really. They all wore condoms. They’re dead anyway. And I think the hardest is wondering what Alex would think of me now. He, he was scared of being gay, of working too much for the government. I-”

 

“Q,” James says gently. “He’d be proud. Anybody would be proud.”

 

“Yeah, sure.”

 

“He would be. I’m proud of you.” Q looks up, and James still doesn’t turn around, still wanting to give Q the allusion of privacy. “Come on, enough shop talk.There’s some horrible reality TV to be watched somewhere.”

 

Q curls up in James’ bed anyway later that night. “This isn’t a sex thing, right?” he asks.

 

“No.” James pauses. And because he’s vowed to be honest with Q, “Not while you’re injured.”

 

“So you want to have sex with me.”

 

“I want you in my bed every night.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Yeah.” James sighs and scrubs at his face. “It doesn’t matter, and it’s not from obligation, or anything like that.”

 

“You’ve liked me for a while.”

 

“Yeah. But that’s neither here nor there. I just, I need you to know that I won’t lie to you unless I have to.”

 

“Right. Heard that before.”

 

“Go to sleep, Q.”

 

“It’s Danny,” he mumbles but he passes out.

 

So it goes. “You talk to your family about this?”

 

“What?” Q asks.

 

“Your family.”

 

“I don’t have any family.”

 

“Q-”

 

“I don’t-”

 

“Talk to them.”

 

“What do I even say? Huh? That I was-that they-what do I say?”

 

James sighs, and watches Q nearly tear a hole in the bag, watches it swing. “Call them.”

 

“I can’t-”

 

“Call them before I do. Whatever you went through, you can not let your only support system be the people who . . .are as dangerous as the men who did this to you.”

 

Q pauses in between punches. “You’d call them.” James nods, though it’s not really a question. “You don’t even know their names.”

 

“No, but I know they keep tabs on you. The only reason why they’re not pounding on your door is because they think you’re handling it.”

 

“I am handling it.”

 

“Right. So you slept fine last night when I was away?” Q looks away. “Call them.” Q manages to shrug it off, and keep on hitting the bag.

 

He waits until James is out of the flat before going for a stroll. He called using a burner phone.

 

“This is Watson, what do you need?” Q nearly hung up.

 

“Uh, is Sher-Holmes there?”

 

“Yeah, hang a mo’. Sherlock! Phone for you!”

 

“Case?” came Sherlock’s voice over the line.

 

“In a way. It’s Danny. I know we haven’t-”

 

“Are you in trouble?”

 

“No. I was. But I-well, I’m fine, really.”

 

“I’m on my way.”

 

“Woah-that’s not-”

 

“John, keys, let’s go.”

 

“This is a burner, you can’t even-”

 

“It’d take me too long to explain but I know where you are. Just stay there.”

 

“Sherl, it’s fine. Really. I’m good.”

 

“I’m hanging up. Don’t move.” Q sighs heavily at the dial tone, and sits on a bench.

 

He only has to wait a nice twenty minutes before a cab screeches to a hold in front of him. Sherlock Holmes leaps out of the cab like he’s being tailed by-well . . .something, okay. Definitely something. John Watson follows at a much more sedate pace, after paying the driver of course. Sherlock bolts to a standstill in front of Q, looking more like a racehorse than a detective.

 

“Sherl, I’m fine, really. I promise.”

 

“You’re not fine. You’re currently living with a spy.”

 

“Say it a little louder, why don’t you. Oh, come, let’s go inside. James is probably cooking something or other.” Q groans but leads the two men back into the flat. He does his best to disguise his limp, but knows it’s already a failure. James is making another batch of ziti.

 

“Hey, who’s this?” James asks. He doesn’t bother reaching for a gun. Whatever Q’s going through, James trusts him.

 

“My family,” Q snarls at him, “Because of your rotten advice to call them.”

 

“Yeah, well, people worry about you. How dare they,” James snarls back. “James Bond, good to meet you.” He shakes John’s hand since Sherlock is gallivanting around the flat.

 

“John Watson. Likewise. That’s Sherlock.” They take a moment to watch the detective move around like a crazy person.

 

It takes another week but eventually Q moves back out of the flat. James says nothing about it. He knows Q, and he knows the aftermath of what’s happened. And this mental breakdown had been a long time coming.

 

Q moves back into 221B. Sherlock, for once in his life, uses skills that John had taken a while to impress into him, and doesn’t try to get him to talk about it. He doesn’t stop using the kitchen for experiments, but he waits until all parties are awake at least.

 

Q wasn’t a broken man on a bridge anymore. He knew that. He did. His subconscious didn’t.

 

“Easy, easy.” John was sitting against a wall, relaxed. Q looked down at his hands. He was holding a gun. He didn’t lower it. “It’s fine. I promise.”

 

Q breathes, but he doesn’t lower the gun. He knows better. “Can you call Bond?”

 

“Okay.” John flips open his cellphone and does just that.

 

“Bond,” came the calm voice.

 

“Hey, Q’s having a bit of a time. I’m putting you on speakerphone.”

 

“Hey,” Q says.

 

“Hey, yourself.”

 

“What’s been happening in the office?” Q asks.

 

“Eve’s been trolling the boss for the past bit.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“She’s been sneaking weird memos past him about cats, and necessary equipment for laser pointers.”

 

Q laughs suddenly. “She took my cats in after I was-well after.”

 

And he yammers on like that for a good while. And eventually Q lowers the gun, and John gets off the floor, but it still feels like there’s something wrong. And James eventually hangs up the phone, voice horse.

 

“I’m sorry,” Q says to John. “I’m sorry for aiming a gun at you, and being ready to pull the trigger.”

 

“It’s okay,” John tells him.

 

“No, it’s not.”

 

“Hey,” John says a little more firmly, and waits until Q looks at him. “I promise, it’s okay.”

 

Q had left James’ flat because he’d woken with a hard on, a warm body pressed up against him. James had locked himself in his bathroom to try to lessen Q’s panic, called John, and Q couldn’t breath enough to yell at them all.

 

“What if everything isn’t okay?”

 

“Then we deal with it.” And Q shakes, thinking a lot more about Alex, about lazy pancakes in underwear, and tequila shots in his bedroom. And they were together for over eight months. It’s been five years.

 

“I think I’m in love with James. More than I should be.”

 

“Come on, I’ll put the kettle on.”

 

“Okay.” Q waits until the tea is served. “I can’t drag him into the mess of my life.”

 

“You know what he told me when he called me to come get you? ‘He’s going to throw himself at me in an attempt to get me to hurt him, to stop it from hurting so much. Don’t let him. I love him too much to stop him.’”

 

“He told you that?” John nods. And Q just slumps. “Did he tell you what happened?” A headshake. “When I was 19, I left home and fell in love with man. He was murdered for his secretes. And I got grabbed a few months back because of it. They . . . .raped me, and drugged me. They beat me. They wanted his secretes back, but I don’t have them anymore. I-I escaped, and went to James, because he was the only one I could trust. I haven’t seen Sherlock since I was nineteen.”

 

“So what are you going to do now?”

 

“I start back at work on Monday. That’s enough to be going on about.”

 

“And James?”

 

“I guess he’ll get his head out of his arse enough to realize that I love him back, have for a while now.”

 

“And you need to get that it’s okay to love him.”

 

“What if they kill him, John? What if they stuff him in a box, and ask him to say he doesn’t love me? He won’t. I know him. James has never been smart to quit while he’s behind or ahead.”

 

“Well, it certainly won’t be better if he dies alone anyway. Q, he’s a spy. You’re a spy. You could both be dead tomorrow from a bullet. Isn’t it better to love anyway?” Q shrugs. “Anyway, it’s his decision, Q. He doesn’t need your permission to love you.”

 

“Doesn’t he?” Q asks, mostly sarcastic. “Am I his SO for nothing?”

 

“Significant other?”

 

“Senior Officer.”

 

“Right. Of course.” John coughs.

 

Q sighs, feeling far older than he should. “I just-I want him to be happy. And I won’t make him happy.”

 

“His choice. It’s his choice to want to love you, to show it.”

 

“I-”

 

“And you can’t take that away, no matter how much you want to.”

 

“Fine. But-”

 

“Q, go to bed. Hopefully you’ll make better sense of it in the morning, and at least James will be here for you to argue with him, not me.”

 

Q, for once, does as he’s ordered. He goes to sleep. He goes to work in the morning. He gets up and goes to work in an environment where people shoot off guns, and- it was fine. It was. He allowed himself the small concession of wearing his softest sweater, that he got secondhand.

 

“Hi, Q,” Eve greets him. She hands him a cup of tea. He sips at it, not looking up from his work. It was really fiddling with wires that wasn’t important to anything. The Minions were too good at their jobs to give him something to burn the world with. They also didn’t ask him how he was feeling. His style of hiring works.

 

“Hi, Eve.”

 

She waits until he has a full mouthful before saying, “I saw James earlier. He looks like you shot his dog.”

 

“Shot his dick.” The minion closest doesn’t startle. They’re hackers. There’s definitely a spreadsheet of how much he’s spent in James’ bed. There’s pie charts, and they had coffee to talk about him and 007, and that’s  _ fine _ . That’s the job. Eve brandying it in public is not. “Medical wasn’t pleased.”

 

“I bet.” She turns and leaves. He’s already gotten the lecture; he doesn’t need it again. He goes back to the wiring . . . after dumping the tea down the drain.

 

He goes from work to the barren safehouse that MI6 had. It was an efficiency. It had a kettle, and a single bed. It had two windows with bullet proof glass, and a deadbolt that was never unlocked when he was there. There wasn’t even a kettle with the old gas stove top. And he kept living out of a suitcase.

 

“There a reason you’re working on cars now?” Eve asks him, trying again to breach the wall between them.

 

“They held a gun to my head and asked me about a computer.”

 

“I’m sorry,” she offers. He waves it off, will always wave it off. It’s the job.

 

“It’s not you.” He doesn’t get out from under the vehicle. It’ll probably go to James. Who are they kidding? “I’m not sure I can be Q anymore.”

 

“So don’t be. Be different.”

 

“And if I get fired, if I lose  _ everything _ over it?”

 

“You won’t. Not me. Not James. Not even M. Your Minions are also your responsibility. You fed and named them. You know the rules.”

 

“I know. You know they drugged and chipped me last night after inviting me out for a round of drinks. What the fuck was that, Eve?” he whines.

 

“Don’t get taken,” she starts the phrase.

 

“Call William Neeson.”

 

“Just. . . .give them a break. Half their job is keeping you safe.”

 

“Yeah. Well.” he fiddles with a tricky pipe, that should be able to shoot out fire on command but was only shooting out gas. “You want me to talk to him.”

 

“You call his answering machine every night to listen to his voice.”

 

“I do not-”

 

“And he never answers because he knows you’d just hang up and not be able to sleep.”

 

“He does WHAT?”

 

“So yes, I would like you two to talk like you’re adults.”

 

“I-” She raises an eyebrow. He can’t even see it and he feels it. “Fine.”

 

“And talk to John.”

 

“You know John?”

 

“John is the sole reason none of us have killed the British Government yet.”

 

“Right. Fair point.”

 

He does. Really. He talks to John. He even talks to Sherlock, although that conversation goes “when are you going to bang your blogger?” more than anything else. He still avoids James Bond like it’s going out of style.

 

“Hey, Q.” It’s four am. In the bleeding morning.

 

“Hey, Bond. Any reason you’re on my doorstep?”

 

“I-uh-blew up my place.”

 

“Russians?” Q asks, stepping aside, letting Bond in, and bolting the door after him.

 

“Nah. Damn French bombers.”

 

“And they found your place?”

 

“Well, to be fair, it’s not a hard place to find.”

 

“Yeah. Come on. I’ll put tea on.” Q turns on a few lights, which really lit up the blood spots on James’ clothing. “Jesus, Bond. The bathroom’s down the hall.”

 

“Thanks.” James goes to patch himself up as Q puts the tea on. He also starts the process of reheating food.

 

“Sorry, I can leave,” James says, hair wet from a quick shower. 

 

Q shakes his head. “No, I’m enjoying the correction to the past month of reversal.”

 

“Yeah, I figured you would.” James laughs a little bit, and takes the cup of tea offered to him.

 

“And I’m trusting you to not do anything stupid.”

 

“Like what?”

 

“Like hide dangerous injuries or try to-”

 

“Q, I just need a place to sack out for a couple hours, that’s all.”

 

“Right, yes.”

 

James stares at him. “Do we need to-”

 

“We don’t need to talk. It’s fine.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yeah. We’re fine.”

 

“So you’ll stop avoiding me? Avoiding this?” James touched Q on his hips, swinging the man up against him, careful to not squeeze or brush more than the bare minimum. He smiles internally because Q goes where he puts the bofin, no hesitation. James has done enough dancing to know he’s right.

 

“I’m not avoiding you,” Q protests, looking over James’ shoulder.

 

“Q. I’m not going to hurt you, or ask for things you can’t give. I’m only asking you to not avoid me because you think I will.”

 

“That’s not-that’s not why I’m avoiding you.” James wisely keeps his mouth shut. “I’m avoiding you because of me.”

 

“It’s not you, it’s me?”

 

“I can’t be what you.”

 

“Q, I’m not asking for sex.” The other man flinches back, and James taps his fingers against the hip to get the other man to settle back down. “I’m not asking to hold your hand in an office romance. I’m asking you to give me a chance.”

 

“And if I can’t?”

 

“Then stop avoiding me, and just tell me that.”

 

Q looks at him, trying to unbury all the secrets between them. “I-”

 

“You don’t have to answer me now.” James nudges Q towards the bed. “We’re just going to sleep.”

 

“I-why are you so put together at this time of night?”

 

“Special training. Come on, Q.” James pushes the bofin to the bedroom, and they settle in. “I think I love you.”

 

“I know.”

 

“Do you know Star Wars?”

 

“What?” Q asks. James is for once completely surprised. He knows Star Wars, and Q missed the reference, which is 900% doubtful. He lets it go.

 

“Nevermind. Go to sleep.” And Q somehow manages to pass out before James can register anything else.

 

They’re both still there in the morning. It’s less surprising than it should’ve been. Q wraps his skinny arms around James, and just lays there like he’s got nothing better to do, because he doesn’t.

 

“I’m fucked up,” Q murmurs into James’ neck, knowing the agent is awake. James doesn't say anything. “I may never want to have sex or kiss you or-”

 

“That’s fine,” James interrupts, and god knows why, but his calm voice manages to reach Q.

 

“Okay. I love you,” Q says back. “I love you, but I’m not good for you.”

 

“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” James rubs his arms down Q’s back. “And I’ll spend the rest of our probably short lives proving that if I have to.”

 

“That’s a good plan.”

 

The end.

**Author's Note:**

> It’s hard to write Q and James. They both hate to talk about themselves. There’s a reason all my created characters are egocentric (shhhh-let’s ignore the other reason); they like to talk about each other. So, I’ve been working on this for at least a year and a half (started it back in september 2016). Jesus. Like I said, they talk rarely.
> 
> I had the Civilian blasting in the scene when Danny meets Alex, and really didn’t realize it for way too long. It works perfectly.
> 
> I’m not overly happy with the ending but after about two years of work, it is what it is.


End file.
